Isolation of Plant RNA

Efficient extraction of high quality RNA from a variety of plant tissues is an important first step in many procedures, such as analysis of gene expression, cDNA library construction, and in vitro translation. This procedure, which is essentially as described in Draper et al. (1 ), involves grinding and phenol extraction of plant material followed by differential precipitation of RNA with sodium acetate. The protocol has been successful with leaf material and cultured cells from a large number of species, however, slight adjustments may be necessary to optimize extraction from other tissues.